


Sensible Proposition

by pewpewdragons (Nyoona)



Category: Flight Rising
Genre: Antagonistic Relationship, Can they even be friends?, I Don't Even Know, Living Together, Mutually Beneficial Situation, No nice people here, Nonbinary Character, Not enemies but definitely not friends or even friendly, Other, Swearing, Temperamental duo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-03
Updated: 2021-03-03
Packaged: 2021-03-15 11:47:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,559
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29807925
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nyoona/pseuds/pewpewdragons
Summary: Nidoreia is a Witch. She shouldn't be allowed to live within the main clan area, yet here she is, not only living within the center of Pergamon clan but in such comfort and even relative luxury, at least to her old bones that had lived all of their life struggling. But is she comfortable? No. The rich bastard she lives with needs her, or to be more precise, Oseanis needs her unique magical skill and compensates handsomely with a paycheck, warm room, and belly as full of food as she wanted. But this will not last. They will die soon. Her skill can only prolong the inevitable. And while the arrogant Skydancer won't be missed by her, it is not the clock ticking that is making her angry.





	Sensible Proposition

**Author's Note:**

> In this story both of the dragons prefer to live in their meihin aka beastclan forms, the bipedal small forms with human type faces and hair, like centaurs or maren. They have dragon feet and tails but no wings. Meihin are usually between 2-3 meters tall and a good social and diplomatic form to shapeshift into.
> 
> Oseanis is nonbinary. Some references for both [here](https://pewpewdragons.tumblr.com/post/644561215035785216/quick-ref-post-for-nido-and-os-for-linking-to-fic).

Nidoreia let out a frustrated sigh and placed aside the long-winded text about magic and economics that she had been reading in bed, that under normal circumstances should have put her to sleep in no time. Tonight it didn't work. In fact it hadn’t worked in some weeks now and a full night’s rest had slowly started to feel like a distant memory.

  
The lack of sleep did seem to make the Pearlcatcher constantly peckish though, so she folded her reading glasses, placing them on a small night table, right next to perfectly round and flawless-looking pearl. From a drawer she produced a mask that covered the left side of her face from the cheek to the hairline and tied it in place, hiding a large patch of scarred skin. She was sure no one was awake this late but nevertheless she wasn’t in the habit of leaving her room without it.

  
Grabbing a warm shawl and wrapping it around herself Nidoreia opened the bedroom door and took a peek outside. It was dark and quiet. Only a few dim night crystals lit the hallway, just enough for her to see where she was going. The midnight bell had sounded a while ago. That meant that Oseanis should be fast asleep. Although Nidoreia felt a fleeting childish need to trample loudly and annoy her moody living companion, sense won and she tried stepping as softly as she could when she left the doorway and made her way towards the kitchen.

  
There was no light visible under Oseanis’ bedroom door as she slowed down to a tiptoeing walk. Where she was surprised to see light was from the Skydancer’s study. The sickly dragon usually held on to a strict rhythm of life, always doing things at the exact same time of the day.

  
She approached the study door with caution, trying to figure out what to do. While she had lived with the other dragon for some years now she still didn’t quite know what to call their relationship. They definitely weren’t friends or voluntarily close. Oseanis wasn’t her employer either and she detested even the idea of being seen as servilient to them. Yet it was a trade of sorts.

  
Oseanis needed her. The normal term for what they had would have been possession, yet whatever had tried to possess them hadn’t succeeded. But it had stuck around and couldn’t be made to leave. Oseanis wasn’t possessed and couldn’t be made to do the ghosts bidding. Instead the ghost treated them like an object or a place, making Oseanis more like haunted. Trying to keep fighting it took a heavy toll on their health, causing the Skydancer to be in near constant pain. Only thing that had a chance of making it easier was a Witch.

  
That was where Nidoreia came into the picture. As a Witch she shouldn’t have even been allowed to live inside the clan Keep but her specific skill was to absorb magical energies, a power that made it easy enough for her to pretend to be a regular crafter dragon and mostly go undetected. But magic she could take wasn’t easy to find and before finding Oseanis she had roamed around, trying to find scraps of it anywhere, just so she could make a living. Now she had a roof over her head and food on her table. All she had to do in exchange was to keep taking that magic out of them. Maybe Oseanis’ need for her was more dire than her need for them but they both benefited greatly from this arrangement.

  
Yet easing their pain a little was the only thing she could do. She couldn’t really help, or take it away, because just like her stomach and appetite, the magic absorption had its hard limits. She did what she could and Oseanis had acknowledged that, but their relationship had still always remained somehow distant and strained, even adversarial. Most of the time Oseanis was prickly and unlikable but Nidoreia knew her own personality wasn’t that nice either, nor one to take abuse of any kind lying down. Few of their more spectacular conflicts had led her to decide she would leave and never come back, but a night in her comfortable, warm nest and a delicious breakfast had so far persuaded her to change her mind. Here she had safety. She was comfortable. Still, one of these days would likely be the last time and she wasn’t entirely sure how she felt about that.

  
Approaching the door, she started to sense the prickling of magical energy in the air. The light shining from under the door also had an unnatural flicker to it unlike any crystal or candle she had ever seen. The constant haze that insomnia had put her mind in had made her unable to realize it sooner but it had been quite a long time since she had last siphoned energy from Oseanis.

  
Too long.

  
“Oseanis?” She asked quietly and knocked on the door but there was no reply. She tried knocking a bit sharper but nothing. Unsure of what to do she twisted the ends of her shawl to knots and back until a faint crying sound from inside the room made her brave opening the door.

  
“Are you—” Nidoreia didn’t need to finish the question because the sight inside the room told her immediately that things were bad. Oseanis’ bony frame was half lying on the floor, half collapsed over a large seat, claws sinking into its luxurious green cushions, ruining the shimmering fabric. So expensive, some small part of her mind noted despite the seriousness of the situation.

  
She had seen the manifestations of his haunting before, unsettling wisps and tendrils in ghostly blue and sickening brown, seemingly trying to grasp and pull in anything that got too close, but there had only ever been a few at a time. Now there were so many, sprouting from Oseanis’ sides and back, making them look like some kind of absurd version of fluttering butterfly wings.

  
“Icewarden’s shackles! What have you been doing, you idiot!” She hissed, springing into action immediately. Her skill made her immune to the ghost, at least for a while, so she approached fearlessly. Plunging her hands right in she made contact with the Skydancer’s body, ignoring any normal paths and points of magical flow. None of that mattered right now with the uncontrolled storm raging all around.

  
The familiar nausea settled at the pit of her stomach as the flow of the energies focused. It took awhile for her body to alter it into something she could use and until then what the ghost magic felt like was disgusting, almost like an oily film all around her being. The faint glow of blue and runes appearing on her skin signalled that the process had started and little by little the nausea subsided, getting replaced by a feeling of increasing power.

  
There was so much of it though. She had managed to make a good dent on the energy storm and cut the number of the tendrils but it was too much and Nidoreia quickly understood that she couldn’t take in enough, not even close. She was already close to full and the ghostly presence was now starting to reach and tear at her clothes and face.

  
If Nidoreia had any sense she would have left before it was too late. It was too dangerous to stay and Oseanis would just have to manage to wrestle the ghost on their own.

  
Yet she stayed. She couldn’t quite tell whether it was pity at the sight of the tear streaked face staring at her with wide eyes, accompanied with panting and broken whimpers or just the frail hand and fingers that had gotten a surprisingly strong grip on her arm, desperation pressing with such force that Nidoreia was sure it would leave bruises for the next day.

  
Nidoreia stayed.

  
“You damn asshole, I’m gonna kill you once we’re out of this,” she swore under her breath as the ghost hands managed to tear her shawl off, and returned the grip with her own, fingers curling tightly around the others’ thin wrist. If she wasn’t going to leave then she had to figure out something else, fast.

  
Even though full, she tried to absorb more. It wasn’t the first time she had tried and unsurprisingly her arms started to tingle, like she had fallen asleep on top of them. The longer she continued the worse the tingle turned until it was felt as rabid needle jabs all around her hands and palms. Fighting the urge to let go and shake some flow back she kept holding on and absorbing. As horrible as it was she knew that compared to Oseanis she probably wasn’t in that much pain at all.

  
Nidoreia had never succeeded in absorbing and casting at the same time but she desperately tried to remember a spell now, anything to direct the overflow of magic out of herself. The panic seemed to have emptied her mind though and all she was left with was her desperate need to get it out, now.

  
The sharp pain on her right palm made her let out a surprised yelp and yank the arm back. Taking a look she saw that something like a piece of a rock had broken the skin. Where it had come from, she had no idea, but it seemed like it had penetrated the palm and buried itself halfway inside.

  
Then, looking more closely at the blood covering the part that was sticking out she suddenly realized that the shard wasn't going in.

  
_It’s coming from inside!_

  
With no time to think she made sure her contact with Oseanis was stable and focused again, keeping her eyes on her palm.

  
_Out. Get out!_

  
She tried to put all of her willpower behind the command and little by little the shard started to emerge. At the same time the magic storming around Oseanis was getting noticeably weaker. The pain on her palm was starting to make the edges of her vision go dark but gathering her willpower she persisted and finally, with only a few tendril arms left, the ghost seemed to decide to give up for the day and receded back inside Oseanis’ body.

  
The rock shard fell from Nidoreia’s hand to the carpet on the floor with soft thud as the thick material absorbed the sound out of the impact. And then strength was suddenly drained from her whole body. Slumping forward Nidoreia leaned heavily on her hands. Slowly she fought a victory over the impending blackout, one by one getting all of her senses back to something resembling a working order. Her ears picked up rustling from beside her and focusing her eyes she saw that Oseanis, still half-lying on the couch that they had been clinging to their life for just a moment before, was looking much more comfortable. The situation had made her anger subside for a moment but now it was back.

  
“I’m gonna need you to explain yourself, right now,” Nidoreia hissed a demand to the dazed looking Skydancer. “Why in the blazes did you let yourself get so bad?”

  
Oseanis didn’t open their eyes to look at her but the way they slightly raised an arm in a dismissive wave told Nidoreia that they seemed to be feeling much better than she did at them moment, as she was pretty sure attempting a movement like that would have toppled her over.

  
“You’ve been tired of late. I thought I would manage on my own for a little while,” was the faintly spoken explanation offered by Oseanis.

  
“Like you were at all concerned about me, you selfish prick,” Nidoreia grunted while crawling carefully towards the couch. Oseanis’ study was an unfamiliar space to her but the comfortable softness ahead of her was at least solid and real enough of a goal.

  
Oseanis’ situation seemed to be the opposite of hers, draped over the cushions, the most immediate threat seeming to be someone bothering them enough to let go. And Nidoreia seemed destined to be that one person today as Oseanis slowly released their grip on the pillows, looking like their body folded down to a more manageable dimensions while doing so. Nidoreia took some pleasure from how difficult it looked for them to turn around and arrange their long limbs to sit down properly.

  
She hadn’t yet quite managed to get herself all the way there but her forehead met the couch and she took a moment to orient herself before finally sighing and saying, “Besides, it doesn’t mean I can’t help you.”

  
Oseanis was silent for a while, taking long and deep breaths. Slowly their chest gained back its normal slow pace. Still, they were taking their damn time before finally opening their eyes and turning to look at her, eyes narrowing in a manner that Nidoreia couldn’t read as anything other than calculating.

  
Their voice was much stronger when they finally spoke.

  
“Does it not? I know the process is somewhat unpleasant to you.”

  
“I’ve never said that.”

  
“Empath, remember?” Oseanis replied dryly, tapping the bright blue bone sphere on his forehead, making the short pair of feathery antennae framing it sway lightly with the movement.

  
“No, you’re most definitely not!” Nidoreia shot back, immediately regretting the quick head move her instinctive reaction had caused.

  
“Well I try not to be. But some things can’t be fixed,” they replied, seemingly oblivious to her plight.

  
“So that’s what it is to you, a problem to be fixed?” she answered more slowly, carefully, trying to make the dark haze leave her eyes.

  
“Why should I be made to carry the pain of others, too? Is my own not enough?” This time it was Oseanis whose answer was quick and aggressive like a whiplash. They didn’t seem to suffer from disorientation but nevertheless continued more quietly, “I can’t stand it. I wouldn’t have agreed to this arrangement if you were the sentimental or emotional type, no matter what you can do for me.”

  
_And you would be dead by now_ , she thought.

  
“Fuck you,” is what she opted to say instead.

  
That was the sentence left hanging in the air for a good while. Nidoreia had finally managed to get herself solidly situated next to the couch, sitting on the floor and leaning heavily against the dark, wooden frame of the furniture. Silence between them was business usual but this situation was not and somehow not speaking felt new. She was thinking, re-evaluating, and she had a feeling they were doing the same but the longer it went on, the more uncomfortable she got.

  
Finally she had to break the silence.

  
“You’ve never told me, how did you survive before this? Before me, that is.”

  
She didn’t actually expect a reply but got one anyway. Oseanis’ voice, so flute-like she noticed after the prolonged silence, replied.

  
“I found out that the ghost can’t take over your consciousness if the consciousness is really not there.”

  
Nidoreia didn’t say anything, realizing fully well what they had meant with that. She had first found them in a barely conscious drugged stupor after all.

  
“My mind got its rest and I was able to fight back and work much better.”

  
A picture was starting to form in her head but she had to make sure.

  
“Then what do you need me for?”

  
“Deities, are you one of those pure kinds?” Oseanis grunted. Or maybe laughed? Nidoreia couldn’t be sure. She let the insinuation pass.

  
“Well, how to explain it? Think of it as a trade. Everything is a trade, like between you and me. Some trades are just less material or mutually beneficial. What I did was I traded the faster deterioration of my body for a rested mind in order to find a way to get rid of it. Yet that trade turned out to not work for me.” Oseanis turned their cyan eyes to look straight at her and made a surprising confession, “Without you I would already be dead.”

  
“You’re unusually honest today.”

  
Oseanis seemed to ponder this for a moment before replying.

  
“I feel unusually well. What exactly did you do?”

  
That question threw Nidoreia back. There was so much to take in and she realized that she had all but forgotten about the strange shard that came out of her hand. But now she did and her eyes scanned the surroundings to find the strange object. Locating a glowing blue rock was easy but to her disappointment it was lying just out of her reach unless she moved.

  
“That thing,” she grunted, trying to lift herself up just a bit and pointing towards her feet. Oseanis turned their head to follow her gesture.

  
“I don’t see anything,” they replied.

  
Of course. The magic was not visible to someone with no inclination towards it. Oseanis would not notice a mere stone pebble. With a sigh Nidoreia carefully lifted herself more upright. Nothing happened to her vision so she braced herself to leave the support of the seat behind her. Happy to find that the world seemed to stay stable this time she got on her knees and reached forward.

  
“That’s strange,” she muttered, picking the thing up. She folded her legs under her and sat down on the carpet, then started turning the rock around in her hands, examining it closely.

  
She could feel magical energy and the rock was shining in clear, cold blue, the exact colour that her own magic was visible to her eyes.

  
Remembering where the rock had come from she opened her hand to examine it. She could not detect any wounds, nor even a drop of blood. Checking the palm even closer, she saw no signs of anything having passed through the skin, no scarring, nothing. Yet it had hurt enough that the skin must have been punctured. There had been blood, hadn’t there?

“Do feel free to think out loud,” Oseanis’ irritated voice interrupted Nidoreia’s musings.

  
Annoyed, she relayed her observations to them.

  
“So just to make it clear, that stone shard you are holding now looks blue to you?” Oseanis lifted a brow inquisitively.

  
“Yes.”

  
“Huh. It looks like a larger than normal piece of gravel to me.” Pausing for a while, they looked around. “Do you see anything else light up in this room?”

  
Nidoreia followed their gaze around. “No, nothing. Just this rock. And you of course, with your ghost.”

  
“Does that mean my valuable magical objects are actually worthless?” they scoffed, obviously not impressed by her observations.

  
“Not necessarily. I can only see my type of magic, the cold kind. You likely don’t have an ice box in here, do you now?” Nidoreia snarked back.

  
“Hmph,” was the only reaction from them. Then they seemed to realize something. “Do you mean that I glow?”

  
“Faintly. And it’s not you that glows really, it’s the ghost. It has made it’s nest inside your chest, near the heart, I’d say.”

  
“You’ve never told me this before.”

  
She was trying to puzzle out if there was an accusation in that sentence but couldn’t really make out anything conclusive. The cursed Skydancer was too hard to read. Deeming the effort useless she turned her attention back to the rock on her hand.

  
“I’ve never done anything like that before. I didn’t even know I could,” she muttered, still perplexed.

  
“Could you do it again?” Oseanis asked, perking up visibly with more reaction that she had seen from them since they first met. They must have come to the same conclusion as she had, that if she could externalize the excess magic, then killing the ghost could suddenly be in the realm of possibility. Nidoriea pondered for a while.

  
“I guess I could try?” She replied, although feeling somewhat hesitant. While she was already feeling much better and stable, the experience hadn’t been pleasant. Yet learning all she could about this new skill of her felt important enough to take the risk.

  
As undignified as it felt, she wasn’t about to risk standing up yet so she crawled on all fours the short distance to sit in front of Oseanis, placing her hands on their knees, palms up for them to take a hold of, like they usually did.

  
“You could sit next to me, you know,” Oseanis remarked from the couch but placed their hands on hers anyway.

  
“If I get sick I will rather do it on the floor. I can’t afford cleaning of such expensive furniture,” she grimaced, not knowing exactly how much but being able to imagine the huge price tag on the luxurious fabric.

  
“It’s actually centaur-made fabric. Cleans up really well,” Oseanis noted somewhat randomly, making Nidoreia raise her brows at them. The Skydancer shrugged, ”I appreciate practicality. But suit yourself.”

  
She closed her fingers around their wrists, sensing the paths of energy that followed the great veins of the body, and focused. Her magic stores were full, even after ejecting much of it but she ignored the discomfort and started to siphon.

  
Or at least she tried. The pain struck her like lightning and then the whole world went black.

..............

  
When she came to, the first thing she saw was Oseanis’ face, uncomfortably close. Her vision was blurry so she couldn’t make out anything except the familiar blue colours but the face receded immediately.

  
“Good, good, you’re still alive. I almost thought you had stopped breathing there for a while.” The tone of their voice sounded tighter than normal. Oseanis couldn’t have been worried about her, could they?

  
Definitely not.

  
“...”

  
Nidoreia tried to ask what had happened but found that she couldn’t quite get enough breath to get any sound out. It felt like having been punched in the gut.

  
“You passed out almost immediately after you started,” Oseanis explained, not even needing to hear the question.

  
“I—” She struggled to get the words out. “—don’t— remember...?”

  
“I don’t know if there’s anything to remember. There was no warning, you didn’t say you were feeling bad, or anything. You just— fell down.”

  
The world was finally starting to come into focus and to her surprise Nidoreia saw a deep crease between Oseanis’ brows.

  
“For a moment I really thought you had died. This is way too dangerous to try again.” Their tone was still unusually tight and the facial expression she could now see combined with the way they spoke was so unexpected that she had no idea what to think.

  
“I’m fine,” she managed to mutter, getting her breath back bit by bit. Repeating the sentiment felt important. For whom, she wasn’t entirely sure. “I’m fine.”

  
“Bullshit. You’re not fine and I forbid any further attempts at this.”

  
“You don’t—” Nidoreia gasped for air but her temper had been properly flared, “—tell me what to do you damn Skychicken!”

  
“Pearlfucker.” Oseanis didn’t miss a beat returning the insult with an aggressive bark while her great bravado ended in a coughing fit. "And I do. I’m your patient, remember? I don’t consent to this type of treatment.” Oseanis’ tone was now harsh and equally irritated to hers.

  
“Oh fuck off,” she wheezed. She would have made a rude gesture at them if she had any energy to even lift her hand, but that was a failing resource at the moment. Concerningly so. As much as she hated the idea she had to admit that what had happened was actually dangerous and she was not fine, not by a long shot. At least not right now.

  
Despite the grim situation her vision was finally more clear and she took in all the surroundings. It seemed like she was lying down on the green couch where Oseanis had previously sat and the Skydancer themself was now sitting on a wooden chair next to it. They were raking their fingers through the dark blue, almost black messy curls, registering as somehow odd to Nidoreia until she realized that she had not seen their hair not neatly slicked back and out of control like this. The ghost had really done a number on Oseanis. The dragon themself looked exhausted, with tightened jaw and dark circles around their eyes.

  
With a sigh Oseanis leaned forward, resting arms on their knees and seeming to sink deep in thought. Nidoreia took an opportunity to observe. In addition to the messy hair, they had also rolled up the sleeves of the white dress shirt worn under a dark silk vest. The arms revealed had pronounced shapes of bones, tendons, and veins visible under the skin. Their fingers were long and slender and made Nidoreia think of a musician, or an artist. Or a crazy poet, combined with the rest of their demeanor at the moment. Only thing missing were some ink stains. This was a different Oseanis from the one she had known for the past few years, one who was not so unpleasant to look at.

  
“Thank you.”

  
Their words startled Nidoreia. They couldn’t have heard her thoughts, could they? Then she narrowed her eyes. Oseanis had never shown any signs of gratitude for anything and it was unlikely they would start now from her having a just a slightly more favourable opinion of them than before.

  
“What for?”

  
“For what you did on that alley, when we first met. You could have just—” Oseanis shrugged, leaving the thought unfinished.

 _That alley._ Nidoreia had almost forgotten it all. In fact without her pearl she could hardly even recall the night in it's entirety, But some parts did remain. Enough to answer.

  
“Well I was thinking of offering to rid you of your thing, for a good price of course. Things— changed, when I realized it wasn’t a magical curse or anything even remotely like that. That there was no way for me to remove it. I was just going to take what I could and leave.”

  
“Why didn’t you?”

  
“To refresh your memory, you came to and grabbed me by my arm.”

  
“And you could have shaken me off, easily.”

  
“It wasn’t charity. I was surviving on scraps at that point. This is a good deal for me too, a trade as you said. One I’m willing to even tolerate your insufferable ass for.”

  
“Insufferable, huh?” Oseanis cocked their head, tone slow and pondering. “I guess that’s true. But you see, I’ve had all these healers come in and go. They promise cures, if I give them just a little more time, just a little more money. And I’m still sick. You on the other hand—”

  
Oseanis went quiet for a while, hands clasping together tightly, gaze turned away. Even without the skill for empathy that the other had she could tell he was trying to suppress something, perhaps anger or frustration based on the tightness of their jaw. When they finally turned back to continue Nidoreia noticed the bright red lining blue-green eyes, as if they hadn’t slept in days.

  
”I assumed you could do that, cure me, but it was just more profitable for you not to. What you did worked but in the end you were still just another healer, just one that actually had my life in her hands. I thought it might force you to show your hand if I got worse.”

And there it was. The reason, the motive. There was literally nothing else to say except that there it was. So that is what she said.

  
“Ah, there it is. Concerned, my ass.”

  
“But I was wrong. And I’m—” There was a look on Oseanis’ face before they stopped speaking, an expression more subtle than their usual clear frowns that hid everything, that almost made Nidoreia believe that impossible words of apology could have been on the tip of their tongue. But no such words came out. Oseanis coughed and then spoke with cool precision, saying only, “I regret that.”

  
Nidoreia almost chuckled out of amusement. Even if the Skydancer had corrected themself this was the most emotion she had gotten out of them since that first time they had met. But Oseanis had definitely not been behaving normally back then, that was for sure. They weren’t behaving that normally right now either. This was probably the most they had ever spoken so far so she decided to continue with a question.

  
“Is that the reason you’ve been such a massive prick this whole time?”

  
“I’m not—” Oseanis started with a protesting tone but abruptly halted, rubbing their eyes and sighing. “It’s exhausting, trying to be what others want me to be and I don’t— No, I can’t afford to waste that energy. I might not be a pleasant person to be around but I’m also not some entirely self-absorbed villain. You deserve my gratitude.”

  
“Shouldn’t you be able to sense intentions? That I wasn't lying?” Nidoreia asked, grunting as she raised herself up on her elbows a bit and balancing to tap at her own forehead with a knuckle to indicate the Skydancers’ skill. She had been feeling more stable but trying to get up didn’t seem to be a good idea just yet as the effort made her vision immediately go dark. She slumped back down on the pillows and closed her eyes, huffing, “You really are a shitty empath.”

  
To Nidoreia’s surprise Oseanis let out a short bark of laughter, though she couldn’t tell whether it was real amusement or just an automatic physical reaction.

  
“I guess I am.” They were silent for a moment after the admission, making her wonder if she should press on for more or if it was better for the conversation to be over. But suddenly they continued, “I think I might have a closer affinity to negative emotions. But I know now. And I can try to act more nicely if it makes you feel better.”

  
“Don’t.” Nidoreia didn’t even need to think before answering. “I prefer your honest behaviour. It’s easy to read. Don’t start on any High Born theatrics.”

  
Oseanis’ brows creased for a moment and then they scoffed. "You think I’m High Born?”

  
“You’re not?” Nidoreia’s brows shot up in surprise.

  
“Most certainly not! I’m just a greedy treasure hunter with some moderate amount of success and one huge failure.” The biting self-mockery was unexpected. “The failure ended up mattering the most.”

  
“That where you got your haunt?” She asked.

  
“I’ll tell you if you tell me about that mask of yours,” Oseanis turned her question back at her.

  
_No._

  
It was literally the last thing she wanted to think about, ever.

  
“On a second thought, I think that’s about as much honesty time as I can stand for one day. And I’m also feeling really sleepy. How about we call it a day?” She dodged.

  
With that Nidoreia tried to get herself up from the couch but Oseanis pushed her back down with little effort at all. No matter how weak the Skydancer was, it seemed that right now she was even weaker.

  
“You can sleep on that couch, though it’s probably not the most comfortable rest. But you don’t look like you’re moving anywhere tonight,” Oseanis noted, standing up from their chair and pushing the piece of furniture out of the way.

  
Nidoreia watched, puzzled, as the Skydancer suddenly turned aimless, seeming to have no idea what to do next. They looked around the office, took a step towards their desk, apparently changing their mind and returning back to standing near the couch. Crossing their arms across their chest they huffed, looking annoyed. She really had never seen such oddly uncertain behaviour from Oseanis.

  
“I do hope you’re recovered by morning,” they finally said, jaw stiff from their apparent irritation. “I have a lot of work to do since I’m feeling so much better now and would prefer you out of the way.”

  
“I will try my best, m’lord,” she replied dryly. This was more like the Skydancer she knew.

  
Oseanis let out an annoyed noise through their teeth and bent down to gather the shawl she had lost before from the floor, handing it back to her.

  
“This should suffice as a cover, I assume. It looks quite warm.”

  
“Guess I’m not gonna get tucked in,” she snarked as she took the shawl and somehow managed to throw it over herself well enough. The room was fairly warm anyway but she did sleep better with a blanket of some kind.

  
“Don’t push it, witch,” they warned.

  
With that Oseanis turned their back and left, turning off the lights without even asking what she would have preferred. It was not completely dark though, as there were various faintly fluorescent things on the dark shelves, illuminating some general outline of the room. And with the darkness she now also became aware of the room’s useless luxury, a live fire, though it was down to embers by now. The fire was behind a fire guard and controlled but still, it made her slightly uncomfortable.

  
Yet despite all it seemed that whatever had been causing her sleeplessness was now gone and the inviting serenity of the world of dreams called to her. She did have one last thought before drifting to sleep.

  
How did I end up on this couch anyway?


End file.
